Southern Heat and Back to School

After spending nine months in Miss Nichols class, I was so relieved when the summer break finally came. I was ready for whatever the summer might bring, even if it just afforded me more time to read. Now that I was older, Mom expected me to do more work. I did things like mow the grass with an old fashioned push mower with no gas or electric power. I gathered things from the garden when asked. I also shelled a lot of peas and beans.

On one occasion when asked to go dig some potatoes for Mom to make for lunch, I ended up having a big scare. The ground was soft and I grabbed what I assumed was a potato only to have it slide through my hands and escape into a deeper hole. When I realized I’d had my hands on a snake, I reacted by fleeing the garden screaming. It was likely a harmless grass snake, but I made a big deal out of it. After all, I’d had expression lessons and I knew how to emote.

Something which really did scare me, came from the kitchen. Mom spent much of the summer canning. She used a pressure cooker which had a gauge on top. Near the top of the gauge in red capital letters was the word ‘Danger’. Mom’s old stove made the temperature hard to control. I visualized reaching the danger level might involve an explosion similar to the atomic bomb. It reached the danger often but instead of a real explosion, this triggered a release valve. It made a horrible hissing noise and a cloud of steam exploded into the room. At the first hint steam was about to be released, I would hit the front door at top speed and not stop until I collapsed in a heap with my heart hammering in my chest.

This was the year Dad had a pond built for our cattle to have drinking water. The cows spent their days in a pasture further from the barn. They’d carved out a path leading from the barn to a spot they liked to graze and rest beneath the trees. Going from the barn to pasture, the herd always follows a lead cow. The lead cow takes the same route each day, so there is soon a three-foot-wide path where no grass grows. When we walked to our back pasture, we always took the cow path too, being careful where we stepped. This way, we avoided the tall weeds.

The pond was located in the back pasture. It had taken a while, but the spring rains had filled our pond to the point we had five or six feet of water in the deepest part. Dad and Mom were trying to teach me to swim. There were no public places around Newton, and I’d never had an opportunity to learn before. So far, I’d learned to dog paddle and float on my back. I loved being in the water even though mud squished between my toes and the water was brown and I couldn’t see the bottom.

During the summer, I never wore shoes at home which meant my feet usually had splinters and cuts and sores always in the process of healing. One particularly hot day, I was looking forward to Dad getting off work to go with me to the pond to swim. I’d been bike riding and I was in an area where mom often left trash, before it was later tossed into a gully on our property. I jumped from my bike and came down on a broken glass jar. The glass sliced deeply into my foot, and blood was spurting everywhere. Mom was working in the garden, and I didn’t want her to know I was hurt. I didn’t want anyone to tell me I couldn’t go swimming with a bad cut on my foot.

I left a trail of blood as I hopped across the grass and into the house. I found a rag and wrapped it tightly around my foot. Actually, the glass had cut into a tendon in the arch of my foot. I needed a trip to the emergency room, but I was determined no one should know. The bleeding had stopped by the time Dad came home. I did wear sandals to the pond, because I couldn’t risk anything touching the cut. Dad kept asking why I was walking so funny. I could barely stand any pressure on the foot so I was walking on the back of my heel. When the water touched the cut, I felt like screaming, but I pressed my lips tightly and bore it. I told Dad I didn’t feel like swimming, and we went back home.

Mom had seen blood everywhere I’d failed to wipe it up, and she was in a panic. It took weeks for the cut to heel. For years, I had a small lump in my arch and discomfort when I walked. I wonder now how all of us kids who ran around getting germs in open sores survived those days.

The Mississippi summers were hot, and it was almost worse inside the house than outside. We kept the windows open, and I did most of my reading sprawled on the floor on my belly near a small electric fan with a wet washcloth. Sometimes, I’d chip off a bit of ice from the big block we got delivered from the iceman for extra comfort.

By August, I was back in school. Mrs. Hardy was my fifth-grade teacher. This year, Mom didn’t sign me up for private speech or music lessons. I was taking after school piano lessons from the Presbyterian minister’s wife. She was teaching me to play hymns from the church hymn book. It probably wasn’t the best way to learn music, but it was easy, and she didn’t have me doing hours of exercises.

Our class was doing a play. The main character was a clown and several of us competed for the role. My rival, Jo Ann was especially anxious to do the part, but Mrs. Hardy chose me. I was going to have to be able to do a series of handsprings as I entered from offstage. I was practicing, but so far, I could only manage one at a time.

Then, Dad came home with tickets for both of us to go to the Ringling Bros. & Barnum Bailey Circus in Jackson. He said I would have to take off a day from school to go. I was dismayed when I learned it would be the day of our play. Mrs. Hardy was upset, as I had already learned my lines. Jo Ann couldn’t have been happier. “Please, please choose me to take her part. I already know the lines too. I can do it. I can even do all the hand springs.” So, Jo Anne was given the part, and I took the day off and went to Jackson with Dad. She was more athletic than me, so I imagine she did the part well.

I’ve already written the story about my day at the circus, which I may use here. It tells of my anxiety about having to climb to the top of the bleachers under the big top. I seem to have been born with an irrational fear of heights. I don’t think my dad had ever seen a circus before, and though he pretended this was all for my enjoyment, he may have been the one who liked it best.